Zibby chats with author Madeleine Henry about MY FAVORITE TERRIBLE THING, an evocative mystery about the sudden disappearance of the world’s most famous author on her wedding day, and the private investigator who reads between the haunting lines of her book…falling into a spiral of secret love, obsession, and death. Madeleine delves into her book’s intricate plot, atmospheric, off-season Hamptons setting, memorable characters, and the theme of extreme fame—and how isolating it can be. She also shares her experiences as a new mom, the topic of her next book, and her best advice for aspiring writers. 

Transcript:

Zibby: Welcome, Madeline. Thank you so much for coming on. Moms Don't have time to read books to discuss my favorite terrible thing, novel. 

Madeleine: Thank you so much. I'm actually such a huge fan of your podcast.

Like, if you ever want to have a podcast about your podcast, I would totally be, just sign me up to be a guest on that podcast. 

Zibby: Wait, what's a podcast about the podcast? What would that even be? Tell me more. 

Madeleine: I don't know, but my book does get pretty meta, so maybe I'm just thinking in a meta way. 

Zibby: Yeah.

Dissecting. The moms don't have time to read books podcast. And as a new mom, you, uh, you know this well, right? 

Madeleine: Yes. Ain't that the truth. 

Zibby: Do you have any time to read these days? 

Madeleine: Yeah, I would say that. So I have a six month old and yeah. So I would say that, um, it's made me aware of the ticking clock more than it used to be, but I'm not, we do have some help, so I'm able to carve out some, some me time to get stuff done during the day.

Good. Excellent. 

Zibby: Well, this is part of your job, right? Reading as an author. You know, you, it's sanctioned. Okay. Please tell listeners what your book is about. 

Madeleine: Okay, so this book starts with a disappearance. And the world famous author Claire Ross has gone missing on the morning of her wedding. And Claire wrote a very interesting book.

She wrote the epic love story called The Starlet Ballet. Which is about soulmates who reincarnate and find each other in every lifetime across historical eras. So they find each other in ancient Rome and off the coast of Madagascar in the Golden Age of Pirates. And in Philadelphia during the Yellow Fever epidemic in 1793.

and onward into the future. And it took Claire 10 years to perfect this book, which is something that her fans appreciate, sometimes to the point of madness. So after two months without any leads, Claire's mom hires the private investigator Nina Travers to try and find her daughter. And so there's a missing person story here, but it's also about fandom and obsession and the line between fiction and reality.

Zibby: Wow. So cool. You're a really good writer. I just, I know you know that, but I was really struck with, and I've read your previous books and everything too, and you just keep getting better and better. I mean, it's really fun to watch. You know, honestly, I mean, they were good too. I don't mean to say that they were not good, but like your writing is so clear, and this is kind of a new genre, you know, a little more mystery, and it's very cool.

You did a great job. Just want to say. 

Madeleine: Oh, that's so nice. Because you've read, you know, like, more books than anyone I've ever met. So, you know, it carries a lot of weight. So, thank you. 

Zibby: No, it's good. Um, I like that you wrote from the point of view of Nina and how we totally get into her life and, you know, just, you know, What it's like, the sort of class differences between her and the Hamptons families who she's helping her need for praise, honestly, and, and to be seen for the hard work, like she's had to give up so much in her life and not really going to college.

I love how you have her sneaking in and like listening in on classes and, you know, the sort of striving and longing that she has and how it comes, you know, to, you know, how she just, it comes all to a head when she's literally like in Claire's bedroom, you know, like in the closet, like looking, you know, where she wants to be versus where she is in life and how to get there.

Madeleine: Yeah, that's funny. The first thing that I knew about Nina is that I really wanted her character to be overlooked and underestimated. And so that was the seed of Nina. And so I really played up the invisibility of her profession. And so as a private investigator, her entire identity is to be exposed.

And so there's no spotlight on her gifts or her internal world at all. And so I really just doubled down on that. And it's actually a thread that I see in other Private Eye novels. So in Nita Prose's, um, The Maid, it's like, It's not a private investigator novel, but you see Molly be overlooked and underestimated in a way that gives her, not an advantage, but it gives her information that she wouldn't have otherwise, because then people are less self conscious around her and they're leaking information.

And also in the Agatha Christie, Miss Marple series, you see Miss Marple be really discounted for being a quote, little old lady, but then people they'll carry themselves in ways they wouldn't otherwise. And she can glean a lot from that. And so Nina has this really interesting duality of being discounted, neglected and overlooked, but at the same time, it gives her a powerful seat in a way into the lives of other people.

Zibby: Hmm. Very interesting. Wow. Nina has a line or you have a line early on that I thought was great as you're sort of describing the Hamptons and the homes. Um, let's see if I can find it, but it was something to the extent of right here. Let me see. Something about how the houses, you said it much better, um, Oh, here, here, I found it, I found it.

No, you said, it's unsettling how much heartache can fit into homes this enormous. 

Madeleine: Mmm. 

Zibby: I love that line. I feel like that's a theme. Oh, that's so nice. 

Madeleine: Yeah, well, I think that Nina has this very outsider lens through which she sees the world, and I think that, Yeah, I think I heard Ruth Ware say that there's a spark of herself in every character and that's the spark that animates them.

So she draws inward to find something to bring them to life. And I think that people, I've always wanted to be a writer, and I think maybe people who are born with that inclination have this spark. outsider lens that's always going in the back of their mind where they always have one foot out of the situation kind of watching and looking in.

And so I think I drew on that in creating Nina and that was maybe the spark that helped bring her to life. 

Zibby: Hmm. The setting is great in and of itself, and the way you describe the Hamptons and, you know, let people in and how Hamptons wardrobes, look and, you know, just all of it. Tell me about the setting and the role of that.

Madeleine: Yeah, so I, so this book takes place in East Hampton during the off season, importantly, um, which is not a uh, window into the Hamptons that I see very often, you always see the crowded Hamptons, the happy Hamptons, you know, the Hamptons house on reality TV, but this is the, the desolate Hamptons, and it is the, the gray, sparse beaches, gray water, damp sand, rustling dunes part of the Hamptons and so I thought that was really interesting to focus on because I hadn't seen it really be a focus before and I think that I loved the mood of it because the mood of this novel is very grave. It's very serious and I loved the setting just created that atmosphere naturally and it's funny I've so I've this is my third novel.

And I think that all of my novels tend to be a little bit more serious than they're ever presented as. Like, my first book was categorized as a romantic comedy despite having just a flirtation in the book, and then it being really a workplace comedy. And so it's just, my books are always pretty, you know, intellectual and serious.

And so in this case, the setting is doubling down on this and saying, this is, this book is saying things like this is not a romantic comedy. So you get that in the setting. 

Zibby: That's true. Well, the cover does not suggest Trump. Yeah, that's true. So that's good. Yeah. Tell me about the title. 

Madeleine: Oh, okay. So the title, this was not the original title.

So Claire's book is called The Starlit Ballet. And so that was my working title for a lot of this book's life. And then, so then, Getting into it with my editor, who is someone, you know, intimately as your editor for Blank and Overheard, which I'm really excited about. And so she said, maybe there's a more suspenseful title.

And I agreed immediately. I said, who's going to read the Starlet Valet? I don't know. And so just in the sense that it's, could be misleading as to the themes and subject matter. So, um, I sat with it for a long time, and then, uh, the name, My Favorite Terrible Thing, just came to me, and I really loved it because, first of all, it's very suspenseful.

Second, there are layers to it, so there are multiple interpretations of My Favorite Terrible Thing. Uh, so it's just a very it's interesting thing to chew on mentally, um, and I won't reveal what those are because I think that they're spoilers. But, and then the last thing is that my favorite terrible thing, it does preview the language in the book, which is, I really try, I care a lot about style, and so that's just something that grows on me more as I get older, as I care about every word, and so I do try for the sentences to be beautiful, even when we're getting into darker themes things. So my favorite terrible thing, I think, previews that this book is going to be written by someone who really cares about the language. And so I think that all those things come together and just pack a punch. 

Zibby: Wow. That's, it's a great sort of overall package. Great job to you and Carmen. Love that.

You know, you do another good job, probably, well, you probably wrote this before you had your your child, but the mother child, you know, the, the, the, everyone's fear that something will happen to their child and the way you portray the mom in the book and her sort of devastation and not being able to go in the room and, you know, just the not, you know, being able to sleep in the house and like all the little things that you would think, well, what would happen if your daughter were to disappear on her wedding morning?

Like, how would you deal with that? Like, what would that feel like to you? And, and what, you know, how would you handle it? You know, and her frustration at the police and not having any answers. So take me into the mind of the mom. 

Madeleine: Yeah, so it's funny because I read for the first, I don't know, thousand, I read every review or like everything people would say and now it's like I've, I've toned it down, you know, you have to do other things.

But it's funny because I would see people say that Miranda, Claire's mom, was her, their favorite character in some, in some cases, uh, which I found to be very interesting. So Miranda, it's weird. really resonating with people in her grief and her struggle. So, Miranda is the mom of two, so she has two daughters, Claire and her sister Kira.

And Claire and Kira have really carved out distinct identities, as I think happens in families where siblings are reactive and will build their personhood in reaction to everyone else so that they have a uniqueness and a and something particular to them to offer the world. So you see Claire as this very soulful and smart, introspective person.

She's not very superficial. She, unlike her sister Kira, who likes life more in the fast lane and she believes TV is where it's at. Um, not in this, you know, business of novel writing, which is slow and who reads anymore. And Miranda is having to juggle the sibling dynamic as the same, which is still ongoing at the, even though Claire is missing, uh, Kira has not really softened in light of her sister's disappearance.

She still is, she's been remarkably unaffected by it, which is something that Nina is zeroing in on. And so Miranda is balancing the sibling dynamic along with the loss of someone who might, it, there are signs in the book that Claire was favored, um, like their house is filled with copies of the Starlet Ballet, which I think is really interesting because For their house to be filled with copies of one daughter's book where, and there are no visible signs of the other child.

It's just kind of this haunting suggestion of, okay, well, where was the parental attention in this family? And, uh, so, and it's funny, in editing, there would be questions. Like, are we gonna say explicitly why are there so many copies of this book in the house? And I, I liked it to be more of a question. I liked it to just be this subtle favoritism.

And, um, also I fancy it as a bigger room. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yeah, so maybe that's not so subtle. But, and I also just loved the image of a house filled with the same kind of book over and over again, because in drawing on this emptiness and the disappearance of Claire, it's just, it's even more haunting for there to be all these traces of her.

And so, Miranda, I guess, She came, the spark of me that was in Miranda is, um, not the obsession around her daughter's uh, disappearance, which she definitely does, but the how sometimes you can be in an emotional place where you're so on edge, you're so close to the edge at any point that just a little thing is going to send you over.

And so there are, um. All these instances where she's just so quietly tense, tense, tense, tense, and then little things will just kind of, you know, pop the balloon and you'll get a glimpse into her, into everything that's building up in her. 

Zibby: I don't react like that. I don't let things pile up. Yeah. It's like the de facto.

Madeleine: Just brush it under the rug, right? Like that's what the. 

Zibby: Yeah, exactly. Until finally I'm like, Oh my God, let me send you this five paragraph long email about it because I've been thinking about it for months. Anyway. Yeah. We all have our downfalls. That's amazing. Tell me about writing this missing character.

Cause you have to make Claire into a character, even though she's not there, right? People's memories, people's perceptions, and yet you can't use really all the day to day things, because at first she is just, you know, gone. So, how do you, how did you do that and did you, when you were crafting all the characters, was it something you knew going in, this is who these people are, or did they sort of come to shape as you wrote?

Madeleine: Yeah, so that's really interesting because, um, one of the things that this book meditates on is on our cultural icons, on the extremely successful artists who we elevate, and what are those people really like. And so it's interesting to have, you know, Claire, as a cultural icon and as the main character in this book, she is put together through what everyone else says about her.

So she, you put her together in your mind through the opinions of her family, through the text of her book, but you never actually meet her. And I think it's really similar to so that's how you get to know her as a missing character, but it's really similar to how we construct our own cultural icons, in that we don't know these people at all, but we have such strong feelings of them based on what other people have said about them, and based on their own work, and so I thought that was a really interesting parallel where we are getting to know Claire the same way we get to know all of the people on the Billboard Top Ten and all of the best selling authors who become so meaningful to us and become real people to us.

So that kind of figuring her out, I thought, was an interesting parallel. But I really just became very interested with extreme fame. And how the extremely weird life that can lead some, um, draw someone into and, uh, you know, we see it happening today with, you know, there are people who have lives that become so siloed and so lonely because they are too famous for everyday life.

And I just became really interested in what would that do to the mind and what would that do to their inner, their most intimate relationships. because there's this really interesting paradox where in order to become an extremely successful artist you have to create something that resonates with a large group of people but then the life of an extremely successful artist is so unrelatable and it's so strange and they miss out on all of these quote normal experiences and so I think it's funny when some of these people, you know, release music or put out a piece of work and then everybody says, oh yeah, you know, this reminds me of this part of my life, this part of my life, and then, you know, but the person behind this work Is actually rarely goes in public maybe or they rarely have any experience that overlaps with yours and so it's just this really interesting paradox and I just became fascinated with how extreme fame can put people in really weird situations in this case and of course yeah.

Zibby: But I feel like that is what Taylor Swift does so well. I know right I mean she has a new life like first of all all the famous people were not always famous I mean some people are born into fame, but most people have achieved something so they at least have a stable of years to sort of fall back on but I feel like Taylor Swift is so like I'm still living it.

I'm still just like you. I'm excited that you're liking it. Do you feel like that? 

Madeleine: Yeah, no, I definitely think that Claire's case she people uh, can project certain things onto her because her work resonates with them, but her life is that she rarely goes out in public, and she has, uh, just a whole bunch of weird idiosyncrasies that, um, she has to, uh, live with because of her fame, and to focus on an extremely successful author is really, it's not always the case in reality, right?

Like there are so few authors who ever achieve real popular fame. I mean, I think that the number of people who would recognize John Grisham or James Patterson walking down the street is really, really small. And most people, I think, don't really have personal connections with the authors of the best selling series.

Um, it's really the exception to the rule, so to make Claire that kind of famous, it, it is unusual. But I was really fascinated with what that might mean. Look like for an author. 

Zibby: Yeah, and the downsides of it as well. 

Madeleine: Oh, yeah, absolutely so Claire has this very particular kind of fame where Because normally in the fiction world the fandoms are for characters And so you'll see Potter heads dress up as Harry Potter Hermione Granger And then I think they're called ringers actually, Lord of the Rings fans.

Just a fact. Um, you know, they'll dress up as characters as well, but in Claire's case, her fans will dress up as Claire. So their fandom supersedes the characters and becomes a fandom for her personally. So it's, uh, It's, it's sort of an unusual situation, but that's, I guess, why it's worth writing about because if it was something everyone were familiar with, you know, it wouldn't be as fresh.

Zibby: Yeah. Interesting. Same thing with like Colleen Hoover. I mean, everyone's reading her books. 

Madeleine: Yeah. 

Zibby: They know what she looks like. Interesting. 

Madeleine: Yeah. Definitely. 

Zibby: My theory is like, they should be. You should know who they are, like, they should be recognizable. Why won't, why aren't they? Like, why not have authors achieve fame in the same way?

Like, why aren't we taking pictures of their outfits? Or, you know, like, wouldn't that just elevate what they're doing and bring even more people to them? But maybe not. 

Madeleine: Well, no, I've heard you say that authors are rock stars. I think that taps into the same idea. And so I've heard you say that before, and I think someone else on your podcast replied, well, authors don't want to be rock stars.

Authors want to be anonymous or something to that effect. And so to each their own, but you're right that the fascination, it does not extend to authors as much. And I don't know if it has to do with frequency because every book takes so long. So if you're putting You know, work out every year or so. I mean, is that enough to keep people interested in who you are personally?

And maybe it's just has to do with the personalities of authors and that they don't tend to seek it out. And, you know, cause if you're really focused on the work itself, which is Solitary and, you know, word-based , um, you're not out campaigning, you're not out putting your face places. You don't have tours to the extent that pop stars do.

So maybe it's a mix of the personalities that are drawn to it and the nature of the work. But I, I agree that there's definitely the potential for, for that kind of reality to develop where authors are rock stars. It just doesn't, it hasn't really caught on. 

Zibby: Yeah. Maybe I should, you know. Put down the, what's that, you know, flag or whatever, the, you know, the torch that I'm trying to carry, you know, put it down.

Madeleine: You've been on a rock star tour. I mean, you have, I don't know what part, what percent through you are, you've been most recently. 

Zibby: I know it's crazy, but I also feel like getting out and meeting people is the most effective way to get the word out about what you're doing. Like how, it hasn't, what is your plan for, for touring for this book and everything?

Madeleine: Yeah. So, uh, this is my first time with a first book with a new publisher. And so I'm actually only doing virtual for tour wise. There's a launch event on April 30th, which is virtual where Liz Moore and I will be in conversation hosted by Bookhampton, details about that on my website, but, uh, for my last novel, The Love Proof, I, it came out in 2021.

So it was still pandemic, uh, era. And so that was all virtual events as well, but I did between 60 and 70 virtual events, which include bookstore zooms. And you, I think, You have real context for what that means. 

Zibby: Yep, that's a lot of scheduling. A lot of zooming. It's a lot of time. 

Madeleine: But it's, honestly, it's so fun to meet people, um, that you otherwise would never meet in your whole life.

Um, and, uh, Talk with people about your book. I mean, it's, it's an incredible privilege and it's extremely fun. But I think that I wanted to feel out what this new publisher would be like before I signed up for, you know, a bunch of stuff. So I have another book coming out with them next year. And so I'll maybe learn from this experience, but what does that pick?

So that book is, uh, I won't say too much about it except that those who enjoyed my favorite terrible thing will probably like the next book and so that is about a wildly creative painter named Devin who is newly engaged and it's, uh, I say that it's for anyone who has ever grappled with the question, are my in laws insane or am I?

And so it is sort of an insidious dark labyrinth of mounting suspense and suspicion between her and her new in laws.

Zibby: That is a great premise. Wow. 

Madeleine: Yeah. 

Zibby: Good for you. 

Madeleine: Everybody loves an in law story. 

Zibby: Yeah. 

So exciting. 

Madeleine: Thanks. 

Zibby: And what advice do you have for aspiring authors? 

Madeleine: Uh, I have a lot of advice. So one thing I would say is that, and this is advice that I really struggle to internalize, so I'm constantly reminding myself of this, so this isn't something I've learned and just execute flawlessly.

This is something that I like. Try to relearn and relearn every day. So, Natalie Goldberg wrote this book, Writing Down the Bones, which gives a lot of great writing advice. And one of the pieces in there is that you have to separate your crea your internal creator from your internal sensor. And you have to give the creator Space to explore and breathe and, you know, go down rabbit holes and be crazy before you come in and you make everything pretty and you clean it up.

And I think that my personality is definitely, I like things to be neat and I like things to be done and tidy and like, let's just get on to the next thing, you know, we have something else happening next year. And so it's really a constant push pull and I have to really remind myself to let the creator go crazy and to indulge that part.

So that is one piece of advice. And then another piece of advice I have, which is I heard actually David Sedaris give on your podcast. Yeah. And I've heard, um, I've heard it from I think Emily Henry as well, but it's that you have to separate writing from publishing. And I think it can get unintentionally, you can confuse them and you can think, Oh, okay, these are, and then you confuse kind of.

The metrics of publishing with the evaluating your own writing and it just becomes very muddled and you can lose track of what actually matters which is the work and showing up and tapping into your own creativity and you know, so I think that don't confuse publishing for writing is my other 

piece of advice.

Zibby: I love that. 

So great. That was actually quite helpful for me. I'm trying to write my next book too, and it is hard. Yeah. Because it's like stage fright. It's like if you feel like every word is being put on a projector, and for all the world to see, you'll never write another word. 

Madeleine: Yeah, and I know that there's this, there's this advice out there, which is that don't wait for inspiration, show up every day, treat it like a job, and that's how you're supposed to write.

Okay. But I actually, there's a nuance to that that I don't like because I don't think you should treat it like a job because then you will feel dead inside. Like I think that you have, there's something to be said for consistency, but that's distinct from treating it like a job. I think that be consistent, be persistent, but you have to feel kind of wild and free.

You have to feel like this is my solace and my oasis and my respite from the rest of the world that is Keeping me down . So, um, I think that that also helps with distinguish writing from publishing because you're saying forget the business of it. Like, I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna be my artist today.

I'm just gonna be my artist self. And obviously be responsible, be diligent, show up. But you know, remember what matters. 

Zibby: Love it. Madeline, thank you so much. This was great. The book is great. I feel like it will be wonderful for Hamptonites to be reading. And I can't wait for your next book. 

Madeleine: Oh, that's very nice.

Thank you so much. 

Zibby: Congratulations. 

Madeleine: Thank you. 

Zibby: Thank you.